Hallie Bauernschmidt in Control Group Productions' "Salon Romantik Opus 1"

Count yourself lucky, very, if you are happily ensconced or cocooned in a relationship full of grace. Such a nice state might inoculate you some from the more complex truths unfolding on local stages this weekend.

Indeed, there is a little bit of every kind of heartache and romantic entanglement on view as three quite fine, very different riffs on romance continue with “Salon Romantik,” Luciann Lajoie’s “Date” and Terry Dodd’s “Amateur Night at the Big Heart.” Check out reviews of the latter two in today’s Denver Post.

For the moment, let’s focus on “Salon Romantik Opus 1: Wanderers in the Sea of Fog,” since tonight and Saturday are the final days to see the darkly captivating dance performance. (work|space Denver at the Laundry, 2701 Lawrence Street, 8 p.m. controlgroupproductions.org)

Under artistic director Patrick Mueller’s guidance, Control Group wades ever so quietly into more narrative territory than usual. Quiet doesn’t mean the vigorously performed “Salon Romantik” lacks edge and muscle. Hardly. The dancers strike impressive and surreal tableaux. Mischief is made and danger hinted at.

Mueller, Kristine Whittle and Hallie Bauernschmidt perform a fairy-tale of bewitchment and hankering, featuring an adventuress, a wood nymph and a woodsman. Their stories entwine and unfold in the shadowy forest of bald and burlapped trees created by Amelia Charter.

I won’t pretend to have understood every allusion. (The adventuress turns into a faun?) And while there are three instances of the trio addressing the audience, telling us something about themselves or making almost declarative assertions, their meaning remains oblique.

Even so, many images — and sounds — have lingered. Brian Freeland’s sound design beguiles and unnerves. (The Black Keys provides some of the piece’s pangs and wailing refrains.)

When Bauernschmidt’ adventuress enters the space at the start, the sound of stones being dropped on the floor creates a rhythmic beat. When she presses herself against a projection of what looks to be the rings of a long-lived tree, the gesture seems to combine two ideas: the notion of rocks creating concentric circles outward in a pond and the rings of trees marking time and timelessness.

Please don’t let me tentativeness in asserting the “story” of “Salon Romantik” lead you to think it doesn’t work. The effect is potent. The dancing — especially Whittle and Bauernschmidt — is powerful. Which, I’d venture is part of Mueller’s point about gender, myth and desire (as is the work’s use of nudity).

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Film & theater critic Lisa Kennedy likes to watch -- a lot. She also has a fondness for no-man’s lands, contested territories and Venn Diagrams. She believes the best place to live is usually on the border between two vibrant neighborhoods. Where better to apply this penchant for overlap and divergence than covering film and theater – two arts that owe so much to each other yet offer radically idiosyncratic pleasures? In another life, Kennedy was an Obie judge. In this one, she’s been a Pulitzer Prize judge in criticism, an Independent Spirit Award jurist and Colorado’s first member of the National Society of Film Critics.

More than a mash-up of the Running Lines and Diary of a Madmoviergoer blogs, Stage, Screen & In Between offers engaged takes on Colorado theater and film and pointed views on news from both coasts and both industries. Culture lovers, add your voices. Culture-makers, share your production journal entries and photos.